Technip Energies, ExxonMobil ink LaBarge EPC deal
Technip Energies said on March 12 it had sealed an EPC contract for the expansion of ExxonMobil's flagship 6-7mn metric tons/year carbon capture and storage plant in LaBarge, Wyoming.
The award was made in partnership with Texas-headquartered EPC services provider Saulsbury Industries.
Laure Mandrou, senior vice president of carbon-free solutions at Technip, said: "We are very pleased to be working with ExxonMobil to expand the CCS at LaBarge, the world's largest carbon capture facility.
"We are committed to advance the energy transition and this project will be a hallmark in reducing carbon emissions."
A final investment decision on the $400mn expansion was confirmed by Exxon in February. The aim is to bring overall LaBarge's CO2 storage capacity to between 7 and 8mn mt/yr, housing an additional 1.2mn mt/yr of CO2, and reducing Exxon's overall upstream GHG footprint by around 3%.
LaBarge's expansion will launch in 2025, subject to regulatory approvals. The storage reservoir will be extended and a new pipeline built to inject discarded carbon.
It is part of a mammoth $3bn commitment through to 2025 that Exxon has made to deliver 20 new CCS projects globally. The Wyoming complex already accounts for 20% of worldwide CO2 storage.
Exxon is also growing its CCS portfolio on the Gulf of Texas shoreline in Houston, where it has backed an all-star IOC lineup to implement a "large-scale" facility on the Houston Ship Channel. Early feasibility work is being undertaken to capture and store around 50mn mt/yr at the channel by 2030, and the capacity could double within the space of a decade.
Fellow majors Shell and Chevron have also joined the Houston Ship Channel consortium, which also includes chemicals companies BASF, Air Liquide and INEOS as well as eight other industry players.
Outside of North America, Exxon has begun to undertake preliminary FEED studies on a CCS location in South East Australia. The pre-FEED project, announced April 14, will investigate the possibility of storing up to 2mn mt/yr of CO2 injected into the depleted Bream reservoir in the Gippsland Basin.